With our land burning from east to west and back again, Australians are not feeling like we live in the “lucky country” right now.

For months, I have been writing about the connection between the untempered fire that lingers within our individual hearts and the raging environmental fires we are witnessing around this fragile country, and I strongly believe this is a train of thought that everybody needs to get familiar with pronto. If you adhere to any sort of conscious or energetic practice, there is no denying that what we experience within, we experience without, both collectively and individually.

We are co-creating every moment and every single experience, together, 24/7. Good, bad, and burning.

Now, I am not saying our personal and group wounding is the only thing that is creating these fires. That would make me just as ignorant and arrogant as the people saying that humans aren’t responsible in any way for what is happening in the environment. I am not heartless and I am not stupid.

What I am saying is that there are several major factors contributing to these unprecedented firestorms that we are witnessing, including both the practical, scientific facts and the spiritual perspective which deserves equal consideration.

That some people may resonate with and communicate the higher perspectives around these fires (and any natural disaster), does not mean they don’t feel for those directly affected, or that they don’t give a toss about anyone’s hardship. When we are highly aware, it increases the burden of concern, if anything, because we intuit more and understand the layers, extremes, and how energetic nuances can “play out.”

I have lived through what thousands of my countrymen are currently experiencing, firsthand. I know what it feels like to stand with your family and watch your beloved home burn down right in front of you and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

That said, everything any of us do around the world from this point forward is going to be “christened” through the purifying rites of fire—and we have certainly been given an intimate taste of what this particular element can do in recent months here in Australia.

So, allow me to try and explain what is happening in my part of the world from the spiritual angle and how it relates to these fires—fires that have destroyed more than the California and Amazon blazes combined.

Shadow has a place in each of our stories, and right now we are all moving through a huge rite of passage—”Down Under,” especially.

The spiritual journey is fraught with challenge, but we can’t highlight only the good (light) stuff without acknowledging how the bad (dark) stuff helped us get there in the first place. Acknowledging both is exactly how we resolve our patterns and heal.

Keep in mind, the same consciousness applies to any situation where nature is out of balance. Wherever the elements are out of alignment in the world, you can guarantee there will be parallel unrest, turmoil, and unresolved stories where humans are concerned. It will also be a given that at some point, all creatures great and small are going to experience anything from mild to catastrophic repercussions in connection to those collective frequencies in the form of firestorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, eruptions, tornadoes, and other disasters. In spiritual terms, it’s called a “wake-up call.”

Everything on this planet is interconnected and interdependent. That includes us humans. We are part of an intelligent matrix that breathes and births without us having to do practically anything. We are made of the same elements that the earth is comprised of and hence, we automatically and organically respond to any changes in our environment.

When the elements inside of us get out of balance, we manifest disease and illness either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually—sometimes on several levels, depending on how long we’ve been living in disconnect, and what our karmic contracts are. So, when Earth reacts to pressure exerted on her by humanity’s overwhelming consumerism and desire for more, more, and more, we feel it; unconsciously and energetically at first, but then in a real and undeniable way.

By nature, we are visceral, heart-centred beings. We don’t have to understand everything about the universe or believe what everyone else does, but if we do want to make sense of our lives and feel like we are getting somewhere and doing some good as we plod along, we will have to come to the realisation that there is a “higher power” and that it has a plan beyond what our limited brains can compute.

Here’s a truth bomb for you: Mother Earth has been here long before we arrived, and she will be here long after we are gone. She will always rebalance herself because despite the wickedness we subject her (and her divine creations) to, we can never destroy her. We don’t have that much power, despite what our ego tells us. We think we do, but we don’t. Eventually we will all wake up, slay our inner demons, and remember how much we love and cherish her—even if it is just in the absolute nick of time.

There is no separation between the love we have for our great mother and the love we have for ourselves. Mother Earth. M.E. Me! I am the Earth. You are the Earth. We are one and the same. Self-love is loving the planet, and loving the planet is loving ourselves. If we love and respect ourselves, we will love and respect the Earth. We have just erased this knowing from our data banks over time.

Reactivating our collective heart chakra now is the key to how comfortable evolution will be for humanity moving forward, so let’s bring it all together now—in raw truth and bright light.

What happens when we get years of extended drought, significantly less annual rainfall, higher and drier temperatures, unpredictable winds, and bucket loads of fire “fuel” (leaf litter and the like) accumulating? You get the “perfect” physical conditions for some serious fire action—transformation—to take hold. These facts are the undeniable, proven by environmental scientists’ facts—the true-blue results of how climate change looks in this country.

The 3-D world is highly vulnerable and it is still the main source of reality for most people, so, understandably when the 3-D world collapses, we do too, and often with ruinous results—a bit like when we put all our eggs in one basket. If all our joy relies upon the very structures that are designed to shift and change—as we are witnessing with the patriarchy flailing now—it will only create more chaos and attachment to illusion.

The mental expressions of our climate crisis are a little different.

We can’t see these as obviously as we can see parched grass, crack-dried dams, and ember-attracting fencing.

On the mental level, we see rising mental health statistics, suicide becoming a viable option for our troubled youth, and increased domestic (and environmental) violence. Terrorism is included here as increased distortion in Mother Earth’s nervous system directly affects our own internal wiring systems.

When our minds overheat, our brains don’t work so great. Any doctor will tell you that. So, imagine what would happen when the mainframe that drives all our energetics starts malfunctioning on a mass scale. On top of this, things compound if people are having difficulty exercising their free will with confidence and integrity. Rationale goes out the window for one, followed closely by accountability.

The emotional expressions are another kettle of fish.

These energies are reflected in the voices of the people protesting their rights and demanding change because they are fed up with the same BS and the same lame politicians basically doing f-all.

This energy is also aired as anxiety—an insidious, yet very real vibration that builds in each one of us in differing ways until it erodes our faith and interferes with our ability to function on a day-to-day basis. We struggle to feel calm, remain positive, and keep trusting in “the bigger picture,” as we are consumed with concern about the future that might exist for ourselves and our children. As this happens, people either get up or give up, which in turn can create division among communities and further separation as shadow continues its struggle to be seen and to be “right.”

Lastly, the spiritual expressions include the energetic traumas and inherited programs that inhibit our ability to bond and support one another as equals when the chips are down.

And boy, are they down right now. This level includes the inherited trauma we all carry from our days as abandoned and abused convicts, sent from the UK to the other side of the world—to no-man’s-land quite literally, and to no-white-man’s-land—and left to rot. Not a great vibration to build a colony upon, and certainly not an easy vibration to clear for the collective when (still!) nothing has been done since those first settler days, to acknowledge and (properly) apologise to the people whose land we stole.

We are the generation that is “paying” for the decisions our ancestors made, and by the same token, our children will have to live in the aftermath of whatever we choose to create from this point forward in our nations’ histories. Every country has its skeletons. Let’s just own ours and get busy healing them already.

Our group mentality, our ignorance, our defiance in the face of climate science, and our refusal to end the rift and heal the wounding between whites and indigenous in Australia, are also contributing to our demise right now. And as I said, I am not the only one barking up this Bodhi tree. We are not just taking ourselves down with this behaviour; we are taking other species with us.

According to ecologists at the University of Sydney, approximately “480 million species of mammals, birds and reptiles have been lost since September”. That’s half a billion species that may never recover. The unique creatures that Australian tourism has so heavily relied upon to attract visitors to our shores may not get over this scorching. It won’t matter how many jobs could potentially be created by whatever mine they want to build and fight to protect because it will occupy a barren wasteland, in all directions.

So, we begin 2020 carrying a burden, whether we like it or acknowledge it or not. With one of the big themes for this Capricorn-ruled year being societal restructuring, I reckon now is as good a time as any to shift the status quo. Those individuals and groups who are worthy to lead and who do have the best interests of the planet at heart, will actually get the opportunity to step up and do good this year, just wait and watch.

We begin the new decade with the overwhelming sense of response-ability to do better, to be (and do) more to help support the planet, and the knowing that we’re all going to have to work a heck of a lot harder to change the status quo if this “heaven on earth” gig is truly going to manifest.

I hope you are beginning to see how there is much at play now in the forces of nature and on the various realms of consciousness. It’s not just about climate change. It never was. When I say we are all responsible for these fires and for the energetic and genetic “conditions” that have created the space for them to flourish, I am talking about the collective energy that we have manifested for generations.

Our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual work just got real.

If there’s one message I learned through my own fireside catharsis, it is that these fires are meant to light within all of our hearts a focus on loving, appreciating, and protecting our family—immediate, ancestral, and world. Loss leads us all back to love (eventually) and it’s my highest hope that when the final embers die and the skies begin to clear across our troubled land, this chapter in Australian history will inspire all peoples to embrace the will of Great Spirit more than ever.